Viticulture is no longer the preserve of men. Photo credit: Volker Gehrmann
How many female wine growers are there in Spain? According to the 2023 report La Relevancia social y económica del sector vitivinícola en España (The social and economic relevance of the wine sector in Spain), published by Spain's Wine Interprofessional, there were 20,051 female vineyard holders in 2020. That represents 30.4% of the country's total, compared to 27.9% in 2009.
However, as Ana Torrecilla, communication director at Arag-Asaja in La Rioja, points out, "administrative data doesn't always correspond to the day-to-day management of the wine estates. Many women who are not listed as owners, carry out a significant part of the work, applying for subsidies and so on."
Shared ownership, a legal status introduced in 2011 for couples who manage a property together, has been slow and erratic in its adoption. So far, only 1,257 registrations have been recorded for all types of agricultural businesses (see chart below), with significant regional disparities. There are no registers in Madrid, whereas there are 582 in Castilla y León and 254 in Castilla-La Mancha.
Yet, according to the Interprofessional report, the number of female managers has grown significantly, from 11,116 in 2009 to 23,194 in 2020, reaching 30.1% of the total (see chart below, blue for women).
Empowering women in rural areas was one of the recommendations of the High Level Rural Forum organised by the Spanish EU Presidency in Sigüenza (Segovia) last September. The Forum discussed the importance of collecting data at national level, implementing effective policies to reduce inequalities and improve employment and innovation prospects, as well as promoting women's participation in decision-making bodies.
Although there is still a long way to go, viticulture is no longer a male domain and women are taking on many roles in the sector. We spoke to a grower, a consultant, a director of viticulture, an estate manager, a multi-talented wine professional and a researcher.
An economist by training, Ascensión is the fourth generation of a family of grape growers in the small village of Montaña Blanca, Lanzarote, Canary Islands. Although she studied and lived outside the island for a long time, her life has been tied to the land: "I have always returned to the vineyards because I feel a strong bond with them."
She has been at the helm of the family business for 17 years and has taken on the task of recovering old vines. Ascensión now farms almost 30 hectares of vines organically in one of the most challenging wine-growing regions in Spain, with rainfall below 150mm and tiny yields of 1,300 to 1,500 kg/ha. With grapes fetching around €3/kg, her clients include Puro Rofe and Los Bermejos. " This is a very special business because it is not just about money: it is also about culture, identity, preserving the soil and treating the land with respect. It is essential to make it profitable, but financial stability must be sought over a period of time," she explains.
Photograph by Abel Valdenebro.
Ascensión, who still remembers how women were barred from wineries during their menstrual periods, believes that there are very few female wine growers and that women are under-represented in this male-dominated business. She also observes a big difference between the presence of women in technical, clerical and winemaking areas compared to their role in grape growing. "I remember getting out of the truck to deliver the grapes and being on my own; there were no women around; you don't need to be told anything; you feel a dysfunction that needs to be fixed. Society is made up of men and women, and it is absurd to isolate them by gender. Women must have the same opportunities to get anywhere they want to be."
For Ascensión, the way in which a vineyard is farmed involves a great commitment. "In the dry, arid land of Lanzarote, I strive for biodiversity and the renaturalisation of the land, so that agricultural activity and nature can coexist. Growing grapes must be organic, contributing to the local culture and preserving the identity of a territory, and the growers must be helped to do this. Our duty is to keep ecosystems alive; our land must absorb CO2 at a time when it is so urgently needed; there are no excuses," she argues.
Born in Madrid, Sebastián works alongside Julián Palacios at Viticultura Viva, a respected Spanish viticultural consultancy whose clients include Ostatu, Lan, Valenciso, Bodegas Frontonio, Artuke and Bideona. With no family wine tradition, her love of the countryside led her to study agronomy and graduate with a Masters in Viticulture and Oenology from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. From a young age, she has taken on considerable challenges. The most difficult came when, at the age of 26, she took over the management of the vineyards of Osborne's Solaz in Castilla-La Mancha, with a whopping 700 hectares of vines and a team of 80 people.
"I moved to a village of 70 people in the middle of the countryside. I learned a lot from my mistakes and hired a lot of women. They are meticulous and there was no rivalry with them, although I am not bad at dealing with male work crews. It was harder with the foreman, who wanted to impose his views. It took me three years to be accepted," she recalls.
Once everything was under control, Bárbara convinced José Ramón Lisarrague, one of her professors at the Polytechnic University, to set up a consultancy firm, but soon the opportunity arose to join El Coto in Rioja, where she spent nine years until 2020. It was there that Bárbara was able to present her doctoral thesis, while supervising the planting of Carbonera in the foothills of the Sierra de la Hez, the highest vineyard in Rioja. After leaving El Coto, she resumed her consultancy work with Viticultura Viva, while also managing her own clients, such as Gramona in Penedès, for whom she has been providing viticultural advice for years.
Bárbara feels that there is a shortage of viticulturists in Spain, both men and women. "When I finished my degree in agronomy, there was more or less parity, the problem is that many of my colleagues ended up working for irrigation, phytosanitary or agro-insurance companies. During my years at El Coto, we only received one internship application from a woman, and I hired her. Now Teresa Martínez has become an outstanding professional. She has been supervising viticulture at Gramona for eight years and from December 2023 she is working at Aiurri in Rioja, part of the Alma Carraovejas group. Most companies seem reluctant to hire people straight out of university, but someone who is enthusiastic about the work can be the best choice."
Born in Haro (La Rioja), she has been learning all her life, "not to become the best, but to be able to interact with other professionals and understand the efforts of colleagues from other disciplines," she says. A graduate in Agricultural and Agri-Food Engineering, Olarte is about to graduate in Oenology and has completed three Master's degrees in Quality Management, Wine Innovation (she was the best student in her class) and Management of Cultural Areas and Projects.
She has developed her professional career in Rioja, supervising the vineyards of Remírez de Ganuza, Bodegas Bilbaínas, Bodegas Riojanas, where she created a school of viticulture, and only a few days ago she was appointed head of viticulture and innovation at Vivanco. Olarte still remembers how, in 2000, when she was working on a research project at Cvne, Basilio Izquierdo, the company's technical director at the time, gave her some coveralls and said: "If you understand everything that goes on in the winemaking cycle, you'll learn what you like and what you don't like". She eventually focused on the vineyards. "99% of wine is grapes. I realised that I liked the vineyards the most, but I also understood what the other stages of wine production did and knew that I could give them what they needed," she explains.
Natalia thinks that the main problems for wine growers are the lack of generational replacement ("the work is greatly undervalued; it's not the same to say you are a wine grower as it is to be an oenologist") and the absence of entrepreneurship. "It's not just about profits, it's about adapting to the market, being sustainable and maintaining a holistic approach to the landscape, traditions, culture and the uniqueness of each village."
In her opinion, women have always helped with wine growing, working as unskilled labour, but today many have inherited their parents' vineyards and are making them profitable. "We are seeing more and more female participation," she says.
Nonetheless, she criticises the fact that there are no role models for growers in the media and that most of the stories that make the headlines have a negative tone (strikes, low prices). This is something that Natalia Olarte is trying to combat in her role as a communicator. This year she has been involved in the Women of Rioja initiative, consisting of three round tables with female professionals in the wine business at the Rioja Cultural Centre in Logroño.
Located in Molinos de Ocón, in Rioja Oriental, between Tudelilla and Sierra de la Hez, the grapes of Finca Vistahermosa are among the most sought-after in Rioja, especially for the quality of its old Garnacha and other varieties grown up to 750m elevation.
Part of Rumasa's assets, it was auctioned off in 2002 and bought by José Ramón Herrero, a former employee of the expropriated company who was well aware of its potential. When he asked his children who wanted to manage it, Clara, then a 28-year-old forestry engineer, readily accepted. She trained in viticulture and oenology, asked her teachers for help in finding a technician and launched the project with Juan Antonio Blanco, who had just graduated in agronomy and is now one of the partners in Bodegas Sínodo.
"At first, the farmers didn't even look at me, they looked at Juan Antonio. They saw a young woman from Madrid who was changing things and leaving cover crops, and they concluded that I knew nothing about growing grapes and that my vines were badly looked after," recalls Clara.
It took a lot of work to get the neglected vines back on track and to convince wineries to buy quality Garnacha to make red wines. "At first we sold Garnacha to Marqués de Riscal and Marqués de Cáceres for rosé wines," she explains.
At present, the estate has 165 hectares under vine and, in addition to the flagship Garnacha, it includes white varieties and reds such as Graciano and Tempranillo, which grow at high elevation and have acidity levels that are difficult to find in other areas of Rioja. Altogether, Clara handles 1,1 million kg of grapes, at prices twice as high as the DOCa. average. Some of the buyers are renowned producers like Álvaro Palacios, Roda, Baigorri, Muga, Izadi, Marqués de Vargas, Barón de Ley, up to a total of 14 wineries, with many more on the waiting list.
Buyers of Garnacha from Finca Vistahermosa vinify it separately. In addition, prices are not set by the kilo but by the hectare, and each client has their own plots of Tempranillo and Garnacha so that they can monitor the ripening process. It is a close relationship that goes far beyond that of a standard supplier. It is, in fact, a successful business model with a unique approach in Rioja.
Clara, for her part, reserves two hectares for her own personal project: she wants to see the name Finca Vistahermosa on a wine label. If the property were in California, her clients would be proud to put the name on their labels. Like a To Kalon in the heart of Rioja.
The daughter of a businessman from Vitoria (Basque Country) with grandparents from Rioja Alavesa, Maribel studied at the Escuela de la Vid in Madrid in the late 1980s, where she met her Sevillian husband. "We were just 23 when we jumped in and started a winery in Lapuebla de Labarca", she recalls. The winery is Zugober - Belezos, which they continue to run jointly, now with the help of their son Manuel, despite having parted ways 12 years ago.
Maribel has always been passionate about wine. She continued her training in Bordeaux, where she obtained a tasting diploma and learnt the technique of grafting (below with her team), which brought her into contact with experts from Corsica to California and led her to work all over Spain, the Canary Islands, southern France and even New Zealand.
The fact that grafting is a seasonal task done in the spring allows her to combine this expertise with winemaking at the family winery and her work as a consultant (she helped Villota get off the ground) and taster on the Regulatory Board. "This is such an exciting world; it allows me to explore many different areas," she explains. What Maribel doesn't enjoy is the sales side of the job. Perhaps because she remembers her beginnings over 20 years ago, when wine was a man's world and almost everything was confined to dinners and lunches. " Now selling is professionalised, women prioritise tasting and doing their job, the brand is at the forefront and trips are planned in detail," she notes.
When she is grafting, she works with a team of Mexican specialists for both wineries and nurseries. For her, it is extremely rewarding to be able to work in different wine regions. "Priorat has nothing to do with Penedès, Bierzo, Navarra, Trujillo in Extremadura or the Canary Islands; nor does a head-pruned vine with a trellised vineyard or pergolas; and the same can be said for soils if you compare limestone or clay", she points out. With grafted plants, wineries can produce the type of wine their distributors and importers want in a couple of years, preserving the roots and saving a lot of time and effort compared to uprooting and replanting the vines.
It is a meticulous job, where attention to detail matters. "The tools are very important, the razor must be always sharp, which is done with a diamond stone and then with leather, just like barbers do; disinfection is also vital," she explains. But perhaps the most important thing, in her opinion, is that "grafting regenerates the plant, because you have to start with healthy, disease-free wood."
A passion for the countryside led this experienced teacher to study agricultural engineering and then agronomy at the Polytechnic University of Madrid. She became interested in viticulture thanks to professors such as Vicente Sotés and José Ramón Lisarrague. "They were different, critical and knew how to make theory come alive. I was 23 years old and my way of avoiding boredom was to keep learning. After graduating with a Masters in Viticulture and Oenology, I got a job as an assistant, which allowed me to finish my thesis. I gradually gained stability; being a researcher is a long-term career," she explains.
Pilar still sees very few women wine growers; most of her field work is still with men, but she is pleased to see a growing number of female consultants. "Change is slow, we have to teach children from an early age that the word of a man or a woman counts the same. Sexism is not just a man's problem, it is also a woman's problem; it is a social and cultural reality that can be reversed through education," she says.
She had an eye-opening experience during her year at UC Davis. His irrigation tutor, expert Larry Williams, "not only listened and answered my questions, but asked my opinion and included some of my suggestions in the paper. This empowered me and helped me gain confidence," she recalls. Now she tries to instil the same confidence in her students.
Research, she says, requires total dedication. "Most of us women who have prepared our dissertations have postponed motherhood until we have finished them". Hers was on trellising systems, but now she is focusing on practical, market-oriented issues. Baeza is currently working on two collaborative projects. For Vid-Expert, which aims to create a carbon footprint diagnostic system for climate change mitigation in the wine industry, the task is to define the algorithms on the viticultural side. The second, focusing on yield prediction and crop modelling, will keep her busy for the next three years.
